World Jewish News

Bronfman resigns from WJC

Edgar Bronfman's resignation this week as president of the World Jewish Congress put a sudden end to a nearly 30-year reign at one of the world's best-known Jewish organizations.
The move Monday, at a WJC steering committee meeting, capped weeks of turmoil in the organization following the firing of Rabbi Israel Singer, a longtime senior official, in March.
Bronfman's departure closes a long and fabled era for the organization -- an era that included both accomplishment and aggravation.
The WJC governing board will elect a new president June 10 in New York, officials said. The steering committee will convene a nominations committee to consider candidates.
Mendel Kaplan, chairman of the WJC executive, appears to be the leading contender at least as interim president, according to sources. Ronald Lauder, a philanthropist and president of the Jewish National Fund, also could be a candidate.
Edgar Bronfman declined requests for interviews Monday. But his closest associate, WJC Secretary-General Stephen Herbits, told JTA that Bronfman decided to leave because the issue with Singer had been resolved.
"Bronfman has been trying to leave for six years; now he is free to retire because the matter with Singer is closed," said Herbits, adding that he was informed of Bronfman's decision only a half-hour before Monday's meeting.
Last Friday the WJC had put out a statement through a public relations firm saying that Bronfman, who turns 78 next month, "has no intention of stepping down."
Herbits said Bronfman's view changed when the steering committee voted Monday to "no longer discuss Singer, that the matter is closed for the World Jewish Congress, that it would not have any more business with Israel Singer."
Pierre Besnainou, head of the European Jewish Congress, said he backed Kaplan to take over the organization.
"We support Mendel Kaplan," said Besnainou, who had been the fiercest critic of the way Singer's firing was handled.
Founded in Geneva in 1936, the WJC is the umbrella organization for more than 100 local communities and the putative representative of world Jewry.
Under the leadership of Bronfman and Singer, the WJC played a major role in winning billions of dollars from European banks and governments in restitution for victims of the Holocaust. It also helped to uncover the Nazi past of Kurt Waldheim, a former Austrian president and United Nations secretary-general.
The group had been under a cloud since the revelation several years ago that Singer secretly transferred $1.2 million of WJC money to a Swiss bank account. The money subsequently was returned, but critics say the transfer was never fully explained.
A number of investigations were launched in the wake of that revelation. A 2006 report by the New York State Attorney General's Office found no evidence of criminality on Singer's part, but assailed the organization for lax record keeping and said Singer had violated his fiduciary duties by moving money around without proper authorization.
In 2005, a report by the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers sought to analyze a decade's worth of financial documentation from the WJC office in Geneva but was unable to account for $3.8 million of WJC money. A separate Internal Revenue Service investigation into the organization's finances is under way.

Источник: jta.org